


across the distance, and back again

by jasp



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: M/M, Multi, bi visibility day gift for these bi poly kings, but more about zag's journey than anything else, for now., you KNOW "messages" aren't the only things zag's carrying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 03:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasp/pseuds/jasp
Summary: Patroclus passes on a gift that both taps into a history Zag will never be part of, and shows him that there is still more he can be part of. He has reached the surface several times, and he must keep going, but no matter what comes next, it doesn't have to be an end.





	across the distance, and back again

"It was cold," Zag recalled. "And there was..." A pause to recapture the word, another, shorter pause to revel in having remembered it. "Snow! Everywhere. Even at night, it was bright enough to hurt my eyes. 

"Than had a point about that, I guess," he added with a chuckle. "If that’s what it's like when it's supposed to be dark, I can't imagine how bright the _ day _ must be." He rubbed his arm reflectively, feeling an echo of the chill and the strange, carefree movement of the air above. He stared distantly into the fog of the Lethe as if he might eventually see light reflected within it. 

Sitting beside him on the grass, Patroclus stared into the same distance; perhaps he was looking for the same thing. He responded at length, impassive. "Snow...it is winter, then, I suppose."

"I...guess so, yes." Zag had only ever heard of winter, and even then, he had only a vague memory of it from some story or other, senseless background noise for tales of heroes and gods.

"And what do you think of it? The world of mortals," Patroclus asked flatly, the end of his sentence pulling up into something like irony.

"It's worth it," Zag answered without hesitation. "All of the time here, and every time Father will surely send me back. Even just the little I've seen."

Patroclus hummed shortly; it could have been just the slightest breath of laughter. "You're quite taken with it, then."

"He has no more say up there than anyone else does. It's not just that I like it, it's..." Zag struggled with the words for a moment, but found he couldn't even pin down the feeling behind them and gave up. "I need to go back. That's all."

"If you do need this so desperately," Patroclus said, dry but with humor that lacked his usual bitterness. "I would pray that the Fates at least permit you to surface during a more hospitable time of year."

"What do you mean?" asked Zag, whose grasp on the seemingly endless variations of surface weather was still poor at best.

"Spring is lovely in Phthia."

None of those words meant much of anything to Zag. "I..." he began, and then, seeing the look on Patroclus' face, felt a hollow between his lungs that made him rethink what he had been about to say. "I'll keep that in mind, sir."

A long silence settled in. Patroclus seemed to have tucked his attention back within himself, and Zag considered whether he should leave; the surface he longed to see again lay not so very far away, after all. He had just begun to gather himself to rise and go on his way when Patroclus looked over to him - _ at _ him, for the first time since he had come in the room, it seemed - and laid a stalling hand on his shoulder. 

"Regardless of whether it could be said to be admirable, what you're working towards deserves some acknowledgement, I think," he said, and Zag was startled into stillness by his tone, vulnerable and unclouded and touching on something like care. "Though you certainly don't need to hear as much from me, of all people. I would hope that doesn't sour the intent." A corner of his mouth quirked up, not really a smile, but as close as he was likely to get.

"No, not at all, er...thank you, sir."

Patroclus gave his shoulder a brief squeeze, then released him to reach into a doubled fold of his cloak. "There are of course things that the dead bring with them to the Underworld, things that were impressed upon their souls. But for those of us housed in the hallowed halls of Elysium-" He drew out the words with the sort of flat resignation he reserved especially for talk of his current situation. "-a number of other earthly comforts offered by mourners can be found buried within the Boatman's wares, and may be taken, for a price." He produced a stoppered vial of heavy, tinted glass; a liquid moved thickly within it. He held it out, and, despite being freed from the burdens of things like muscles and tendons, his hand seemed to shake. "Go on, then. A bit of the surface to carry with you."

Zag took it, not one to ever turn down generosity. He only stopped to wonder about it a moment later. He held it up and gazed through it, but couldn't accurately tell what color its contents were; there were several small, dark objects suspended inside it. "What is it?"

"Scented oil, good for the hair and skin, at least for the living. I procured it some time ago in...let us call it a moment of sentimentality. Seeing as I have no body left to adorn, in any real sense, you shall certainly get more use out of it than I."

Zag had plenty of his own trinkets and curiosities that he had collected over the years, but he'd never had any sense of where they came from. This thing in his hands had been touched by the light above, had been made by mortal hands. He almost imagined he could feel warmth radiating from it. "What's in it?"

"You would doubtless be unfamiliar with it."

"I want to know."

"The oil is from olives," Patroclus said, and Zag was about to insist (perhaps with just a touch of pride) that he could have guessed _ that_, at least, but the explanation continued. "They grow on short but full trees with silvered leaves. The wood is as strong as bronze, and far nicer to look at, in my opinion."

Zag listened, and tried to imagine any tree that wasn't the blood-red-bone-white of the pomegranates in the House, or the dead-gray of the wintering trees on the surface. Curious, he pried the stopper loose and sniffed at the oil tentatively. The closest comparison he could make would be the air of Elysium itself - the greenery, the freshness, but with a somewhat cloying heaviness to it as well that more nearly resembled the piles of dried leaves that were sometimes heaped onto the House's braziers to cleanse and enliven the air.

"Lavender," Patroclus offered quietly and without prompting. "It grows in bushes, and blooms purple in the warm seasons. The leaves are soft and dusty. It smells sweetest after rain."

Zag couldn't think of what such a plant would look like but it hardly mattered. The knowledge, and its sharing, were where the significance lay. He pushed the cork back into the vial and hesitantly stowed it away. He would have to be very careful with it - he didn't want to even think of losing something like this. "I...don't know what to say, sir. Thank you."

Patroclus chased the words from his mind for the second time in as many moments by leaning in to kiss Zag's cheek, the delicacy of the gesture belied by the rough (if, oddly, not unwelcome) scrape of his beard. "Say that you will be on your way, stranger," he said, his wryness cut with the wistful air of one watching for a familiar stride in a far-off, fated march. "And, should you return to that house of yours, bring my regards with you.”

* * *

It was some time before Zag thought about opening the vial again. It wasn't as if he was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of cleaning up a bit more than he usually did, it was just that that sort of pomp was only ever a dagger in a woolen sheath. Gifts like gold and fineries had to be offered, and one did not receive offerings if nobody knew one's name. Rather, his father had insisted on his dressing up, on a few occasions - most recently, his formal presentation to Meg. Nothing he'd worn had been _ his_, to use freely and as he pleased, least of all the fine oils rubbed into his skin after ghostly servants had finished scrubbing him raw.

This was different, though, given to him and to him alone, out of choice and affection and attention to its significance. Not a proper offering, so to speak, but a prize nonetheless. The Styx brought him home, as usual, far faster than his father could travel back from the temple; there was time for a thorough, if hasty, bath, without preemptive scolding echoes chasing him down the hallway. His eyes caught on the vial on his shelf as he returned to his room. He dared not use much of it - there wasn't that much of it to begin with - but just a bit, brushed through his hair with his fingers, was a delightful thrill of rebellion. He hadn't yet made it more than a few steps beyond that final door, but he had made it _ out_, many times over, and he would celebrate that. He had touched the surface, and he wore it wreathed around himself as proof.

He steeled himself before he peeked into the main hallway, but all was relatively quiet, a sure sign that his father hadn't returned yet. In the distance he could see Achilles drifting back and forth, restless at what was probably the midpoint of a shift. He took another breath, startled for a moment at the intensity of the still-unfamiliar scent, and stepped out of his room.

Achilles raised a hand in greeting when he saw that Zag was heading his way, looking more than a little relieved to have something to do other than pace. "You've returned." He stared a moment longer, then offered a tired smile that was belied by the curiosity in his gaze. "And cleaned up quite nicely as well. What's the occasion, lad?"

"Oh, nothing in particular, just thought perhaps I'd take advantage of father not being here for once." Zag ran an unnecessary hand through his hair, pricklingly aware of the attention. "You look like you've had a long day. Night. Whatever. I'm sure you've earned a break?"

Achilles glanced briefly towards the lounge door. "I think it best that I keep at my duties for now. But surely there would be no harm if you chose to accompany me on my patrol," he said, with a knowing look and a nod of his head in a direction that would take them well away from the crowds of petitioners in the hall.

"Surveying the perimeter, of course! Lead the way, sir," Zag said, mock seriousness tumbling into laughter as they wandered out a side door.

It was quiet outside the House, and deathly still, an absence as much as it was a presence. Their voices raced up into the air and petered out to nothingness long before anything or anyone would be able to make out the words. Like any two points adrift in darkness, they settled toward one another, until their shoulders brushed as they walked.

There was a stutter, as if a step was missed, and Zag paused, but Achilles was there as he had been, keeping pace, looking first into the inky distance, then to the severe rise of the House's walls, vigilant. "...You borrowed something of your father's, didn't you. Is that what you meant before?"

"This?" Zag lifted a few short strands of his hair in demonstration. They shone slickly, and fell back neatly when he let them go. "Not my father's, for once. Here - do you know what it is?" He added quickly, and leaned closer, eager to show off what he had been taught of the surface and lightly giddy from biting down on a harmless, happy secret.

"I-...well." Achilles reached out with a bit more hesitation than was strictly necessary and, with a tightness around his eyes, seemed to remember at the last moment that he had been smiling, before. He took a bit of Zag's hair between his fingers, lingered, then drew his hand back and towards his face. A breath, and then another, deeper.

When no answer was immediately forthcoming, Zag jumped in. "It's lavender; I haven't seen it myself yet, of course, but I will. I know what to look for, because-...Er. Are...you alright, sir?"

"Where did you get this, Zagreus? Not your father's, you said."

Out of habit, and jumpier than usual from the weight of his proper name in the quiet, Zag looked over his shoulder before answering in a more subdued tone than before. "...Patroclus gave it to me. As a gift, and a...way to keep my spirits up, I guess. I couldn't bring myself to use any of it until recently though."

"I wouldn't have assumed, but..." Achilles exhaled sharply, a laugh or a sigh, or something else. "Of course he did."

"I...don't really understand," Zag said, thinking of other awkward, shuffling times where he had, by accident, brushed a hand across some raw edge or other. "But if you want to continue on your shift alone, I'd be happy to go back to the House-"

"That's," Achilles cut in. "Not necessary, but thank you. I simply..." His hand was curled into a loose fist, resting just before his lips; consciously, he relaxed his fingers, let them fall back to his side. "Would you consider indulging a rather foolish request?"

"I...guess it depends on the request, really," Zag said lightly, scraping for humor. "But I can't say I've ever been averse to foolishness."

Achilles didn't say anything in response; he let his spear drift from his hand, and opened his arms, pleading. The Fates themselves wouldn't have stopped Zag from closing that distance, for all the others that he could never bridge.

Achilles held him gently despite the intensity in his expression, and he breathed slowly, impossibly slowly for one who would actually need the breath, his face pressed against Zag's hair. That aching rhythm was the only thing that stirred the stillness, beyond the rush of Zag's far more excitable heart.

At length, Achilles spoke, muffled and quiet. "No eons could make me forget this." He managed something closer to laughter than before, still too shaky to be allowed to be seen. "He knew that when he sent you home with it. I'm sure. He _ would_."

"You...can have the rest if you want it," Zag offered, and the mild twinge of loss was nothing compared to knowing that, whatever this was, its significance was safely in Achilles' hands. There were things between the three of them that he would always be outside of; he could accept that, but even so, he longed, at least, to soothe the moments that revealed that stumbling lack.

"No," Achilles said, and then, more firmly, "No. It may have been for me as well, but it was for _you_ first, and with you it shall stay." He drew back; Zag let his own grip loosen as well. It was hard to make out if Achilles' eyes were shining more brightly than usual, or if it was simply shade-light. "Take heart in it. And keep going. I think it's safe to say both of us believe in you."

Zag felt his throat move in the beginnings of an answer, but it was too tight to produce a sound. There were too many things there - keep going, but what of returning? Shapeless silver-green leaves and purple flowers and the scent of things carried to the lord of the dead, this lovely, ambiguous thing of the surface that was his, but also Achilles’, and Patroclus’, and that had followed them all to the depths and back. Well - if it could make that journey once, it could make it again, and Zag would bear it with him. That, at least, he could carry, and in doing so promise that his first steps beyond the temple would not echo with the slam of the door behind him. 

He couldn’t find all of those words, not with his voice alone. He leaned in, and passed the tidings he had been given some time ago, a gentle press of lips to Achilles’ cheek. “Thank you.”


End file.
